We're having another chat about computing education in the country, this time with a special guest from Durban who is looking to help change the country for the better.
Kenneth & Kevin are joined by Riaz Moola from HyperionDev and the Computer Science Association of South Africa (CSASA) to talk about teaching programming online. Riaz is an accomplished young man, sporting two international masters degrees and the leadership skills to tackle the thorny issue of improving the education in the country. Almost by accident Riaz developed an online Python training course for students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, which grew into HyperionDev, and also helped set up the CSASA to help educate our educators! HyperionDev is currently helping more than 8000 learners complete various of its community created and supported courses!
We discus some of the challenges faced by learners, the (comparatively) huge drop-out rates in Computer Science courses, building a MOOC for the developing world and having backing from Google and the British Computer Association.
This episode is shorter than usual, but still packed with an amazing story. Join us as we explore what it takes to give the next generation of developers a fighting chance!
Follow Riaz online:
Here are some resources mentioned during the show:
- UKZN Exchange Program - http://ukzninternational.ukzn.ac.za/International-students/student-exchange-programme/general-info.aspx
- HyperionDev - http://hyperiondev.com/
- Python - https://www.python.org/
- British Computer Society - https://www.bcs.org/
- Raspberry PI - https://www.raspberrypi.org
- MOOC - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course
- IEB - http://www.ieb.co.za/
- Computer Science Association of South Africa - http://csasa.org.za/
- CSASA Meetups - http://www.meetup.com/Computer-Science-Association-of-South-Africa/
- Computing at School - https://www.computingatschool.org.uk/
Catch some previous related episodes:
- 36. Sisonke Rising - https://soundcloud.com/zadevchat/episode-36-sisonke-rising-with-mandla-magagula-and-theo-bohnen
- 9. WeThinkCode - https://soundcloud.com/zadevchat/episode-09-wethinkcode/s-cnpLB
Thanks for listening!
See all past picks on our picks page.